Share this

Walter Mondale, vice president during the Carter administration, has some advice for President Obama if he wants to win a second term: drop the teleprompter. "He's got to connect with the American people," Mondale said, in an interview with CNN's The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer."He uses these idiot boards to read speeches [o]n television and I think he loses the connection," added Mondale, out with his memoir, "The Good Fight: A Life in Liberal Politics".

Does Mondale have a point about President Obama's reliance on the teleprompter? Does the fact that Obama's teleprompter is still a major story nearly two years into his term signal broader problems with the White House communications team? Or is this not a communications problem at all but rather a reflection of an unpopular agenda?

As someone who deviated from his “idiot board” when accepting the Democratic Party’s 1984 nomination to announce that he would raise taxes on all Americans, Walter Mondale should be the last person to advise President Obama – or anyone -- to go unscripted. But the fact is that it’s not the scripts that are causing the problem; after all, the most scripted president in memory, Ronald Reagan, so excelled at delivering written remarks – even scripted ad libs -- that he became known as The Great Communicator.

President Obama doesn’t rely on teleprompters during press conferences, nor in his many interviews with TV anchors, the most recent of which was last week with Today show’s Matt Lauer regarding education. His responses are unfailingly crisp, thoughtful and, occasionally, eloquent – a dramatic contrast with his fumble-mouthed predecessor, scripted or not.

Obama’s problem in connecting with voters is that the messages he seeks to convey are aimed at the audience’s intellect and not their guts. He doesn’t stoke our fears or make simple-minded appeals to jingoism.

It’s reminiscent of the old story of the voter who said to Democratic-presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson in 1952, in his campaign against Dwight Eisenhower, that “all the thinking Americans are with you.” To which Stevenson replied: “Oh God, now I know I’ve lost.”

It's hard enough for a mere candidate to avoid getting tripped up by an off-the-cuff remark: remember Obama's comment about people clinging to their guns and religion? And when you're president, it's far worse; every word is scrutinized and analyzed even more rigorously than when you're merely somebody aspiring to the office.

When the argument you're making is one that is a very hard sell to begin with, it becomes even more important to avoid putting your foot in your mouth. When Mondale ran for president himself, he barely carried his own precinct, so he may not be the person best positioned to give advice - and since his campaign was damaged in part by his comments about a prospective tax increase, perhaps he should have given a bit more thought to how carefully he crafted and communicated his own message.

It's not the boards, it's the bubble. President Obama is terrific off the cuff - every chance he gets he should get out of the bubble into the backyard. The American people view true character in unscripted responses to unexpected moments. Chalk this up to our cultural craving of authenticity - we are so marketed to that we distrust anything packaged and demand behind the scenes reportage of everything from war and politics to sports and entertainment.

Mondale’s frustrated observations are as much generational as anything. He came up in an era in which politicians “gave ‘em hell” and indeed, as a young man, rode on Harry Truman’s campaign train in 1948, where he received some good career advice from the old master.

Every major politician of the modern era has used teleprompters for their big speeches and as Mondale found out with Jimmy Carter, it wasn’t the technology that was the problem, but what was written on the technology.

In fact, Walter Mondale once told me he was so opposed to Carter’s now notorious “Malaise” speech delivered in the summer of 1979, he seriously considered resigning as vice president.

Mondale’s prescient opposition wasn’t to Carter’s using a teleprompter but to what the 39th president was saying at the time and history has proven Walter Mondale right.

David BiespielAmerican poet, founder of The Attic: A Haven for Writers :

Let's not be ridiculously sanctimonious here - toward President Obama or Vice President Mondale or, as I see one of my fellow Arena colleagues take note, toward President Bush either. All but a few Americans only see their president through the lens of television. Teleprompters, photo ops, staged events...it's all pre-packaged, orchestrated presentation of the show called the "President of the United States," thank you, Michael Deaver, photo-op maestro of the Ronald Reagan Show. The staging and teleprompters are what count as authentic in the sterile universe of packaging the modern presidency for television sets in American homes.

The problem facing the president has less to do with his reliance on teleprompters than his acquiescence to liberals like Walter Mondale, who – in the eyes of political centrists – have driven this administration too far to the left.

The teleprompters are a problem for President Obama. Early in his presidency, Obama took a lot of flack for his reliance on the device, yet the White House persisted in letting it share the stage at most public events. I remember his address to the National Academy of Sciences in April 2009 when Obama had to communicate directly with the teleprompter operators in the middle of his speech to move the speech past the introductions. During major press conferences, the screen’s presence is largely noted in pictures of the event. What these incidents reveal is a president uncomfortable speaking to his own policies, and events that look staged, even when they are meant to be spontaneous.

But it is not the fault of the device. Teleprompters have been used by every president since they were invented. In an Oval Office address, a State of the Union or another significant event, they are a necessary tool that helps the speaker make his way through a long and deliberate address.

But the crutch needs to be dropped for more informal occasions, rallies and speeches where the passion and conviction of the president should be able to guide him through remarks. As a candidate, Obama was praised by the media for his speaking abilities, but the more he uses the teleprompter, the more people connect a speechwriter to those skills, and distrust Obama himself.

President Obama has had a hard time connecting with the American people, mostly because his policies are so far outside the mainstream. Raising taxes, Obamacare, the stimulus and national security blunders are all deeply unpopular. But the inability for the president to articulately speak to these issues without assistance does not help his cause. The fact that two years into his presidency, Walter Mondale, a liberal leader and former vice president, is admonishing the practice is a testament to this White House’s inability to connect. The fact that it is being debated in the news at all certainly shows the need for a more competent communications staff that can refocus the narrative away from the president’s speaking impediments.

Unfortunately for the president, his frequent use of a teleprompter has become emblematic of larger problems -- chief among which, as Mr. Mondale correctly noted, is a feeling of not being in touch with the people. It also suggests an inability -- or at least a deep reluctance -- to be unscripted, spontaneous and think on one's feet. While it would probably help the president to do away with the teleprompter, what he says, rather than the technology used to say it, is what really matters.

I would say about Obama's teleprompter what I said about Reagan's 3" by 5" index cards. (Readers will well recall how the media ridiculed Reagan for his reliance on those.) The matter before the American people is not the means presidents use, but the nature of their message.

Reagan said it best when he said that it was not that he was a "great communicator," but he communicated great things. People saw that both their own lives and their country's standing in the world improved considerably on Reagan's watch. They rewarded him accordingly. They see Obama take to the podium and think scarcity, bad days ahead, and decline. His message has hardly been one to persuade them that better times lay ahead with him at the helm. In that regard, Obama is more McGovern, Carter, Mondale, and Dukakis than he is either Reagan or Clinton. His failure to persuade is rooted more in an "idiot ideology" than on his reliance on what Mondale calls "idiot boards."

President Obama is addicted to his teleprompter and highly staged and orchestrated events. Vice President Mondale is absolutely correct. You cannot connect with ordinary people if you talk past them through the use of a teleprompter. A live audience becomes merely a prop when they are used.

Teleprompters are generally employed for television audiences because on “tight shots” it looks like you are talking without the use of notes and gives a much better appearance. That of course is true, until the camera pulls back and you can see the prompter “paddles” on either side of the podium.

Obama needs to drop “cold turkey” the use of teleprompters and connect with his audiences. He should play to the people in front of him rather than worrying about the TV audience. If he does well with the people in the room, he will do well with the folks in their homes. The most uncomfortable example of the president’s reliance on the prompter came on Jan. 19, when he spoke in a classroom at the Graham Road Elementary School in Fairfax, Va. The news he tried to make was drowned out by the story that ran about his over-dependence on teleprompter's even for routine announcements and events.

In an interview with POLITICO’s Mike Allen and ABC’s Jonathan Karl Alaska Republican Senate nominee Joe Miller said there should not be a federal minimum wage. "That is not within the scope of the powers that are given to the federal government," Miller said. "The state of Alaska has a minimum wage which is higher than the federal level because our state leaders have made that determination. The minimum level again should be the state's decision."

Miller has also suggested unemployment compensation is unconstitutional. Is Miller correct about these economic issues? Beyond constitutionality questions, is this a wise political strategy? Polls show Miller narrowly ahead of the incumbent senator he defeated in the Republican primary, Lisa Murkowski, now a write-in candidate, and Democrat Scott McAdams. Will Democrats be able to tie other Republican candidates around the country to these stances by Miller?

Joe Miller is simply wrong when he claims that the federal minimum wage is unconstitutional. In 1941 in United States v. Darby, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act, which created the minimum wage. Although the Supreme Court before 1937 had struck down other attempts to create a federal minimum wage, in 1941 the Court ruled: “[I]t is no longer open to question that the fixing of a minimum wage is within the legislative power and the bare fact of its exercise is not a denial of due process under the Fifth more than under the Fourteenth Amendment.”

Nor is there any doubt about the constitutionality of unemployment compensation, which was created by the Social Security Act of 1935. The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of unemployment benefits in three cases in 1937 — Steward Machine Company. v. Davis, Helvering v. Davis, and Carmichael v. Southern Coal Company. and Gulf States Paper.

One can, of course, argue that the Supreme Court misinterpreted the Constitution. But under our system of judicial review, prior Supreme Court holdings must be overruled by the Court itself.

Even before 1941, there was no question that the states had the authority to establish their own minimum wages. By the mid-1930s, roughly half of the states had done so. Today, states have the option to make the state minimum wage higher than the federal minimum wage, which serves as a floor.

Mainstream Republican conservatives, as well as Democrats, have long accepted the federal minimum wage along with federal and state unemployment benefits as necessary elements of modern economic policy. Since the minimum wage was created, every elected Republican president except for Reagan — Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush — signed an increase in the minimum wage. By raising questions about the constitutionality of the minimum wage and unemployment benefits, Miller shows that he is on the extreme fringe of the right, like Rand Paul with his criticism of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and those who wish to repeal the Fourteenth Amendment to deal with the problem of the children of illegal aliens.

Republicans are likely to be hurt rather than helped by the controversy Miller has provoked. If the idea is to create jobs for the unemployed by lowering the wages of existing workers as well as new workers, then the proposal threatens not only the minority of workers who make the minimum wage but the much greater number who benefit from having the federal minimum wage as a floor.

Quite apart from its political maladroitness, lowering or abolishing the minimum wage in the present crisis would have disastrous macroeconomic effects. It would reduce the amount of consumer demand in the economy, at the very time when the absence of demand is the greatest obstacle to hiring and business investment.

When he signed the minimum wage into law in 1938, Franklin Roosevelt declared: “Except perhaps for the Social Security Act, it is the most far-reaching, the most far-sighted program for the benefit of workers ever adopted.”

According to the 10th Amendment -- “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people" -- the Constitution makes no mention of the powers of the federal government to set a minimum wage.

Therefore, Joe Miller is correct. The federal government does not have “constitutional” powers to set minimum wages.

Of course, the real issue is far more dangerous and profound. Reading today’s POLITICO posts by many of the academics tells me our country has other problems.

Clearly, many folks want to tell Americans what the Constitution says, and be the sole interpreters of what is and what is not constitutional while simultaneously branding anyone else that comes to a reasoned, but different view, as an idiot or wild extremist. Perhaps Americans should take a new look at the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence and consider whether the power of the federal government has grown beyond its proper boundaries. Americans should go to the source and read the original documents. What could result might be a healthy and much needed debate.

As for the argument that the issue of a minimum wage is settled by constitutional law, might I respectfully point out that, once upon a time, it was settled law, too, for African-Americans, like me, to be counted as three-fifths of a person. The genius of our constitutional system allows us to review and, after civil discussion, correct mistakes. Many of us across the land are legitimately worried that the federal government is becoming increasingly intrusive and taking powers that rightfully belong to the people. The Constitution tells us we have a point.

When (and if) Joe Miller goes to Washington, he will find many lawyers and conservative action groups who share his belief that the federal government lacks the constitutional power to impose minimum wage standards on the states, the 10th Amendment declaring that powers not expressly granted to Washington belong to the states, or the people. In the Wickard v. Filburn case decided by the Court in 1942 under the shadow of the Roosevelt plan to pack the court, a majority of justices held than under the Commerce clause, the feds had the constitutional power to set commodity prices. In recent years the Court has shown a surprising willingness to tackle some controversial Commerce Clause cases, providing fodder for liberal complaints that this is not a bench filled with self-restrainers but rather scholars of radical right orientation with little respect for stare decisis.

In terms of impact, Smith is being a bit disingenuous in claiming Alaska's wage - now higher than the federal standard - could go down under a national standard.

Possible, but not very likely as Alaska's high minimum is an accurate reflection of the entire state economy which - due largely to transportation costs - will remain elevated for the foreseeable future. There would thus be no national standard, only state laws.

The real issue with respect to the minimum wage is whether by raising the cost of labor as an input into the final price of the goods it discourages the use of human labor in favor of computers or other machines.for human beings, raising overall unemployment rates.Big Labor and other worker advocates disagree.What fascinates about Joe Smith and his brethren is their determination to govern on the basis of conviction, a thought far more charming when he was practicing law in Fairbank than taking on the mind-boggling economic problems on the national agenda.

While it may seem like Joe Miller lacks a sense of political nuance, he raises an important issue: At a time of economic volatility, is more federal intervention going to help? More to the point: Is the federal minimum wage hurting workers more than it’s helping them?

When Congress increases the minimum wage it has dramatic effects on both workers and businesses. For starters, it often shifts jobs from low-skill to higher-skill workers, increasing unemployment among those at the very bottom of our socio-economic ladder. What’s more, while the wage increase may seem modest from Washington’s perspective, the higher cost of labor is often debilitating for companies, who are then forced to lay off workers – even close entire shops, factories, branches – in order to adjust to the new regulations.

That’s why Miller's comments should not simply be brushed off as inflammatory political rhetoric. If, in fact, a state believes there should be a minimum wage, it should be up to state legislators who understand the local cost of living – not Congress – to determine what that floor ought to be.

Republicans who want to cut wages for working families are out of step with the American people. This yoyo economics - you're on your own - is why we've seen a concentration of wealth and power to the top 2 percent of the country at the expense of working families.

And let's be real here - Republicans who question the constitutionality of federal minimum wage and unemployment compensation in furtherance of their yoyo economics aren't exactly stepping up to urge states to help.

It's not as if Republicans Jim DeMint or Joe Miller or Jim Bunning are saying "I oppose a federal action, but here's how I want Alaska or South Carolina or Kentucky to help." Instead they talk about these hard-working Americans as if it's their fault for being poor. See the latest GOP millionaire Chris Dudley video muttering against waitress tips in Oregon for a glimpse into the soul of yoyo economics and reject it in November.

Christine, your comment today is an example of why it's difficult to have a constructive exchange of ideas between like-minded Democrats and Republican who share the goals of social mobility and a safety net. For example, arguing that the federal government setting a minimum national wage is unconstitutional is not at all the same as wanting to suppress the working class, even if a few miscreants may have exactly that in mind.

As with many social welfare issues, there are legitimate arguments to be made that there it is a trade-off between the minimum wage and the number of jobs created, or that setting the minimum is best (or rightfully) left to states.

Personally, I think a higher minimum is worth the job loss, but I'm willing to listen to those who believe it is not, especially for unskilled, chronically-unemployed workers. I think you should too.

Your response talks right past my point - that those who oppose federal assistance are not offering state assistance either. If they were, though I would disagree, I could see the federalism argument. I maintain that people should not use the Constitution as a smokescreen for aid they don't want any government entity to offer.

For instance, Joe Miller says unemployment compensation is unconstitutional now but he did not share that view in 2002 when his wife received benefits. Considering that his own family needed unemployment benefits, why does Miller now take a "you're on your own" yoyo economics attitude to others in her situation?

Miller just acknowledged: "My wife, Kathleen, did work for me as a magistrate judge clerk/secretary while I was a part-time Federal Magistrate judge from 2002 to 2004. Before 2004 there was a long-standing practice, both in Fairbanks as well as other areas in the United States, that due to the time commitments of being a lawyer and a part-time Federal Magistrate judge the same individuals that worked in your private law offices also worked in your federal magistrate office - many of those being family members. Before even applying for the Fairbanks Magistrate judgeship I spoke with members of the federal court concerning the employment of Kathleen. It was confirmed that she could work for me in my office. After leaving my office Kathleen did receive unemployment benefits for a short period of time."

See, on the one hand you've got serious people, like Joe Miller, who want to talk seriously about the size and scope of American government. On the other hand, you've got unserious people who actually write things here like, "why not get rid of wages altogether" as if that were serious commentary or actually relevant to anything Miller said.

On the one hand, you've got Joe Miller, graduate of West Point and Yale Law School, willing to challenge traditional thinking in considering how to get the country out of its current mess, and on the one hand, you've got people who claim to be "progressive" guffawing some version of, "oh ho, this is long settled constitutional law, we're not rubes like those tea baggers - let's keep doing what we've been doing, as it's inconceivable that we're wrong." Who is willing to consider "change," and who is the reactionary who can't see beyond the present?

On the one hand, you've got people like Joe Miller, willing to trust his fellow citizens, and on the other, you've got the sophists who argue that the minimum wage is so popular that we dare not leave it to the citizens of the states to decide, because they might ... they might what?

This is an interesting campaign. The citizenry is desperately trying to open up the political system to new ideas. The establishment is desperately trying to prevent that from happening. Interesting, indeed.

Joe Miller must think he’s living in 1923. That was when the Supreme Court held a congressionally-passed minimum wage law unconstitutional. The Court reversed that decision in 1937, and the constitutionality of the minimum wage has been settled law ever since. Those cases were about the notorious “freedom of contract” doctrine, not the scope of federal power, but that’s not going to help Miller much.

Not even the Roberts Court, conservative though it may be, would take his position seriously - the minimum wage clearly pertains to interstate commerce, and the federal government has power to regulate it.

Joe Miller is absolutely right: The federal government has no authority under the Constitution to set a minimum wage - or to do so many of the countless other things it does today. When Nancy Pelosi was asked where in the Constitution Congress was authorized to order Americans to buy health insurance, she responded, "Are you serious?" That's a mark of how little America's political elites today understand the document they take an oath to uphold.

James Madison, the principal author of the Constitution, wrote in Federalist 45 that the powers of the new government would be "few and defined" - a far cry from today's Leviathan. How did the change happen? In a nutshell, the ideas of the Progressives - in particular, wide-ranging rule by elites - were incorporated in "constitutional law" (not to be confused with the Constitution), not by constitutional amendment but by a cowed Supreme Court following Franklin Roosevelt's infamous 1937 Court-packing scheme. That opened the floodgates to the modern redistributive and regulatory state that so many Americans love so much today.

Don't take my word for it. Here's Rexford Tugwell, one of the principal architects of the New Deal, reflecting on his work some 30 years later: "To the extent that these new social virtues [i.e., New Deal policies] developed, they were tortured interpretations of a document [i.e., the Constitution] intended to prevent them."

But that's changing, if the Tea Party movement is any indication. The American people are waking up to the truth: The government gives nothing that it doesn't first take. It's not Santa Claus. And whether the taking is in the form of money, property, or liberty, it comes to the same thing.

So in answer to the question whether telling constitutional truths is wise political strategy, we'll see. If the people can't take the truth, it's only a matter of time before we go the way of civilizations before us. Fortunately, we still have enough freedom to tell such truths.

Miller's position would lose 9-0 at the Supreme Court, or maybe 8-1 if Justice Thomas decides to go out on a limb, but ruling for Miller would require overturning boatloads of precedent since 1937. The only theory under which the minimum wage is unconstitutional is that the federal commerce power doesn't extend to labor regulation - but under that theory, pressed by some hard-core libertarians, all federal employment discrimination laws are necessarily unconstitutional.

So this is a bombshell position by Miller: he's espousing a fringe constitutional theory that entails rejecting all federal labor laws applicable to the private sector. This is similar to the position Rand Paul took and then had to disavow; Miller should be pressed further on these beliefs.

The federal government has long had Supreme Court approved powers to do things to promote the general welfare of workers and families in this country. The odd thing is that our nation is at a juncture where our very future as an efficient economy and global superpower requires updating and revising our national systems of social protection and economic regulation, and the increasingly anti-U.S. wing of the Republican Party wants to take us back to the 16th century! Just amazing.

Neither the federal minimum wage nor unemployment insurance are constitutional. There is no proscription in our founding document for the federal government to insert itself into the tens of thousands of individual compensation negotiations that occur every day in this country. Nor is there federal authority granted to conscript a portion of someone’s salary for a federal unemployment “insurance.”

How do we know this? Because the Constitution doesn’t expressly grant the federal government the power to do either.

The Constitution as written assigned the federal government certain, limited, delineated powers – with the 10th Amendment as the catch-all. The 10th asserts that if the federal government isn’t specifically given the authority to do something prior to the 10th, it does not have it.

How do we know this – besides just from an elementary ability to read what the parchment says? Now-President Barack Obama a decade ago decried this fact as too limiting and constricting for the expansive view of government he and his have in mind.

Alaska Senate candidate Joe Miller is being lambasted by the Jurassic Press and other Leftists as a fringe kook for asserting these patently obvious facts. He and his tea party compatriots from the very inception of their movement have been calling for a return to a smaller, Constitutionally limited government. So the Democrats and Leftists have repeatedly called them kooky and fringe.

The Republican Party has just recently placed in their Pledge to America a requirement that “each bill moving through Congress (will) include a clause citing the specific constitutional authority upon which the bill is justified.” Cue again the “kooky and fringe.”

Slate columnist Dahlia Lithwick wrote that she found considering the constitutionality of legislation “weird.” Susan Milligan of US News & World Report called it “just plain wacky.” She led off her bit of inanity with:

"Of all the promises in the GOP’s 'Pledge to America,' the most potentially troublesome is the demand that all legislation include a clause stating exactly how the proposed law is provided for in the U.S. Constitution."

Really, Ms. Milligan? Democrats in Congress spending nine months force-feeding the American people an unconstitutional ObamaCare the American people made incessantly clear they did not want isn’t troublesome? But these people seeking a return to a limited government is?

Leftist uber-blog ThinkProgress warns that that seeking justification for legislation in the Constitution reflects “radical ‘Tenther’” thinking – coining a derogatory phrase to denigrate those who seek limited government solace in the 10th Amendment, the name hearkening to that of Birthers and Truthers.

The Democrats, meanwhile, have spent the entirety of this Congress laughing at the notion that what they do should be rooted in the Constitution, and lampooning those who are making that demand – the voters whom they allegedly represent.

James Clyburn, the third-ranking Democrat in the House, flatly asserted “there’s nothing in the Constitution that says the federal government has got anything to do with most of the stuff that we do.” California House Democrat Pete Stark brazenly claimed that “the federal government can do most anything in this country.” Impeached judge and Florida Democrat Congressman Alcee Hastings dismissively acknowledged that “when the deal goes down, all of this talk about rules – we make them up as we go along.”

So we have the Conservative, TEA Party and Republican Party view that we should again anchor the actions of the federal government to the Constitution, as the nation’s founders – those who drafted the Constitution – intended.

And we have the Progressive, Leftist and Democrat Party view that it is just fine that “there’s nothing in the Constitution that says the federal government has got anything to do with most of the stuff that we do.” That “the federal government can do most anything in this country.” That we don’t need the Constitution to moor the federal government to its delimited powers, that we instead can “make them up as we go along.”

Which of these two dramatically different perspectives on the Constitution, freedom and our future do the American people find to be “weird,” “radical” or “just plain whacky?”

The spirit of Jefferson Davis lives, even the frigid climes of Alaska. What Mr. Miller is really saying is that we should all go back to the good ole’ days when the federal government was relatively weak and states' rights trumped most domestic reform concerns, including civil rights, child labor, equal pay for equal work, social security, Medicare, and the eight-hour work day. I’m guessing Simon Legree must be his favorite literary hero.

Good intentions do not always lead to good public policy. Proof positive is Republican Senate candidate Joe Miller's vision for devolving power to the states: get rid of the federal minimum wage and stop federal unemployment benefits.

In theory, who could argue with the idea of conferring greater powers upon states? It conforms to the original design of the Constitution, it relieves the federal government of financial and administrative burdens, and it converges nicely with former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis's theory of states serving as "laboratories" for experiments in democratic decision-making.

But here is the problem: Mr. Miller is fighting a battle that has already been won — by the other side.

The legacy of the New Deal is the triumph of the federal government over its state counterparts. Constitutional conservatives like Mr. Miller lost. And rightly so, because citizens of all states need the protection of national quality of life standards that only the federal government can be trusted to set.

Democrats will use the extreme statements of certain GOP nominees to challenge the Republican agenda. The list of federal programs and activities that Republicans want to cut or privatize seems to be growing: the minimum wage, Medicare, and Social Security. These statements may explain why Democrats have cut the GOP generic vote lead in half in the latest Washington Post survey.

The tea party movement keeps finding ways to shoot themselves in the foot. Conservatives have many issues that they can campaign on, with the state of the economy being number one on the list. But to suggest that their candidates will make things harder for struggling Americans is a sure way to lose support.

Constitutionality claims aside, one of the healthy and fascinating things about this election is that oddball candidates are asking obliquely useful questions (which is not the same as saying they are correct in their answers). By challenging conventional wisdom so startlingly, they are inviting us to revisit the details of how we balance freedom and government in ways that may actually lead to a society that is both freer and fairer than the one we've backed ourselves into.

Is criminalizing mild hallucinogens worth the cost of the war and loss of personal freedom? Is more personal responsibility a socially better response to the failures of our health care system than subsidizing almost everyone? Is racial equality and social mobility ultimately advanced or hindered by certain employment protections?

Positive innovations often begin with insulting questions about the status quo.

David BiespielAmerican poet, founder of The Attic: A Haven for Writers :

Just more of the same from Republican candidates this fall. The Joe Millers of the Republican Party are the honest ones, that's for sure. They have no subtlety when it comes to advocating Republican ideas: They want to end the federal minimum wage, defund unemployment insurance during the worst economic crises in a hundred years, repeal health insurance certainties for American families, slash college loans for students, cut Medicare, and privatize Social Security - and that's not even mentioning the Republican idea of repealing the 14th Amendment, which would strip the Constitution of its citizenship, due process, and equal protection guarantees.

That's the Republican party platform for middle class and working families in 2010. To top that agenda off, Republicans campaign on spending more government money by extending tax cuts to the richest one-tenth of 1% of Americans. Thanks to Joe Miller, the Republican agenda is clear. And clearly untethered from reality.

We have more than 70 years of legal precedent that says the minimum wage and numerous other laws are constitutional. This is not a serious issue. Are we going to get a question tomorrow asking if the earth is round if a Republican senatorial candidate says it is flat?

In terms of the merit of minimum wage laws, there is a large body of research that shows the minimum wage has virtually no impact on employment. If we can increase the income for people who are working, at very little cost to the rest of us, why wouldn't we do it? No one gets rich working at $7.25 an hour, and these are people who are working. It's a hell of a lot better policy than giving billions to bankers.

Joe Miller is not wise to attack the constitutionality of well-settled and longstanding benefit and wage federal policies. The federal minimum wage is a floor not a ceiling. States are free to increase their minimum wage beyond the federal wage if they want, just as Alaska has done.

Miller should stick to the economic issues that voters care most about and that is jobs, spending and the deficit. To engage on economic issues that are not germane to the current concerns of voters is just plain stupid.

There are at least four Republicans running who question or want to lower or do away with them minimum wage. Why not get rid of wages altogether? It’s an annoyance and expense for big business. And taxes. What a pain! Let the poor pay them. Hey, I know! Let’s have privatization of the police and fire departments. If you can’t afford them, too bad for you. And let’s privatize the roads. Bring back the turnpike and keep the riff-raff out of our America.

Politicians like Joe Miller and the rest of his buddies might want to actually read the Constitution before they talk about it.

Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution clearly states that Congress has the power to regulate interstate commerce. And if the minimum wage isn't interstate commerce, I don't know what is. While, they're at it, they might want to check out the other powers that the Constitution gives Congress like setting "rules of naturalization." States like Arizona do not have the power to set immigration policy and if they don't like the way, the feds enforce our immigration laws, they always have the option of amending the Constitution to give states the power over immigration policy. That would be Article V if the tea partiers want to actually shut up for a few minutes and read the document. But no, they would rather complain than act.

Instead of organizing tea parties, Miller, Sharon Angle and Christine O'Donnell should start a book club and start with the Constitution which is the owner's manual for our great democracy. You shouldn't play the game if you don't know the rules.

Joseph Sanderson (guest)
VA:

It's worth pointing out that the word "constitutional" has more than one meaning. There's the legal Constitution, which says that minimum wage laws are valid exercises of Congress's commerce powers (regardless of their economic wisdom or otherwise). But there's also a political Constitution. To Miller, and perhaps to others, this says that even though Congress can, in a federal system, it should be left to the states. And to me that's OK.

Ted Byrne (guest)
PA:

Actually there's an emotional problem with the type of prompter which the president uses. Newsreaders look through theirs into the audience's eyes and hearts. The president's sit off at angles to create an illusion of movement to look toward his live audience, but deny him the opportunity of eye contact with the large TV audience. A president who never makes eye contact appears emotionally disconnected. And in politics, perception is everything.

Todd Fritz (guest)
GA:

Legitimate economists recognize the relationship between employment and the minimum wage (the wage floor). Clearly, setting the minimum wage too high will affect employment. Businesses do not have blank checks for deficit spending like the government and operating costs must exist within P&L boundaries. How many low-cost seasonal farm workers would become unemployed if the minimum wage were enforced?

James Johnson (guest)
MN:

It is interesting to see minimum wage, unemployment insurance and Medicaid are all under attack. It may be that one or more are unconstitutional. The Supreme Court would decide that. But, I think a different agenda is at work here. Give the tea party folks credit for letting us know where they stand and who they stand with. The working poor, our senior citizens and those unemployed due to no fault of their own will be taking the hit.

Jim Wojtasiewicz (guest)
VA:

Our strength can only come from being individuals with a common purpose, rising above the fact that we may resent each other's very existence. That's what it actually says in the Constitution. Miller is just tantalizing Alaskan voters with the idea of getting away with having all the rights and none of the responsibilities of being Americans. But, people who talk like that are just writing themselves out of our country's future.

Tom Genin (guest)
FL:

Eisgruber, Skopcol & nearly every other liberal continues to make the same error in interpreting the Constitution. First, just because the federal government does something, it doesn't mean it's constitutionally authorized to do it. Second, just because it may be the right thing to do, no matter "right," doesn't mean it's constitutional. Lastly, Connecticut has a higher minimum wage than the fed. Should the supremacy clause force Connecticut to lower its wage? Hardly!

Russell Worley (guest)
CO:

The conservative commentators take the issue of a law’s constitutionality very seriously as evidenced by their reasoned and deliberate posts. The liberal commentators respond to the question with snark and condescension, quickly dismissing it altogether. While the question of the legality of a minimum wage is settled, the concern with the idea that we continue to pass laws w/out regard to their constitutionality is of great importance to many.

John Hammon (guest)
TX:

At the end of Article I, section 8 of the Constitution is the "necessary and proper" clause that is integral to the concept of the implied powers. This is what makes the draft possible as well the federal minimun wage. Not all powers of the government will be expressed or enumerated in the Constitution. Where does it say that Jefferson could by the Louisiana territory? Does the tea party want us to give it back to France? Probably not.

Jeffery Morgan (guest)
AL:

Wow, a social science professor talking about an eight hour work day and equal pay. If laws were passed that mandated equal pay for the value of work most "Social Science" professors would not make minimum wage.

Matthew Givens (guest)
AL:

Mr. Frost seems to think the commerce clause gives the government the right to control any commercial transaction. But the majority of salaries governed by the minimum wage are intra-state transactions ... that is, the in-state employer pays the in-state employee. Since no transaction occurs across state lines, how can the INTERSTATE Commerce Clause apply? I think Miller makes some good points.

Laura Halvorsen (guest)
FL:

Martin Frost referred to the commerce clause. Unfortunately, he - like all liberals - considers the commerce clause little more than a useful tool to get around the rest of the Constitution. Whenever liberals start getting boxed in on their plans to expand government (far) beyond that ever envisioned by our Founders, they go running for their escape hatch known as the Commerce Clause.

Brad Bonar (guest)
PA:

One could argue that accruing Bush-level yearly deficits on a monthly basis - month after month after month - is 'extreme' or 'fringe'. And for this massive level of debt we got 10 percent unemployment (at least). Is that not 'extreme'? One could rightly understand that the statists would much rather discuss the minimum wage.

Kenneth Wills (guest)
TX:

Conservatives can argue the constitutionality of the minimum wage, but let's not pretend they're defenders of democracy. Nothing can be more anti-democratic than huge gaps in wealth and income -- which is exactly what conservatives have given us over the last 40 years with ridiculous trickle down theories, attacking union labor (which created the middle class), attacking social services and deregulating everything back to antiquity.

Matthew Davis (guest)
AL:

Brad Bannon, among others, argues the minimum wage is constitutional because it “clearly” falls under interstate commerce. Interstate commerce is the buying and selling of products and services across state borders. The minimum wage may have everything to do with inTRAstate commerce, but it has as much to do with inTERstate commerce as states competing for business via tax incentives, which is not regulated by the federal government.

Apparao Prattipati (guest)
PA:

I would just like to point out that it's not in the Constitution to ban slavery either. By Joe Miller's own logic, segregation should be legal in any state that wishes it so. There's a reason the general welfare clause is included in the Constitution, and that's because our founding fathers were progressives (not the liberal kind or the curse word that the GOP uses) and realized that the laws of the land would have to change as the people change.

Chris Sells (guest)
AL:

Lets read commerce clause Art I Sec 8 Clause 3..."To regulate Commerce with Foreign Nations, and among the several States; and with Indian tribes." Those using the commerce clause as a defense point where the founders included minimum wage in language of the Constitution? Of course founders could not have forseen a need. It is unfortunate that there are those who use the Constitution as a weapon, rather than a tool for governing.

Steven Best (guest)
OH:

The east coast/D.C. progressives like Dworkin and Skocpol can spew the talking points of their collective out of touch base all they want. I can hardly wait to read their take on Nov. 3. I struggle everyday to understand how people like this can be so far removed from what the heartland is feeling and going through.

jim Gorman (guest)
KS:

At the very least the questioning of the federal government's role is a good thing. Too many comments from both sides here fail to address the fact that things like a minimum wage is a two-edged sword. There are unintended consequences of such laws. Would we allow companies to collude to establish such a thing? Would true wage competition result in higher minimum wages in certain areas?

chandru murthi (guest)
NY:

The question should not be is it constitutional, but is it moral, ethical and/or the right thing to do? We should not forever be deferring progress to the dead lettering on a 400-year-old document. While the framers might have been wise, they were not all-knowing and they surely could not have foreseen the complexity of modern life, not to say technological advances like the Internet. The Constitution should be a guide, not a roadblock.

Ken Lang (guest)
WA:

I trust that Mr. Miller has also noticed that the Constitution does not mention airlines or airplanes. So, using his logic, I assume that he believes the federal government does not have the right to regulate airline safety, nor to hire air traffic controllers.

Al Zeller (guest)
NY:

Joe Miller is spot on. The federal government does not and should not have some of the powers it currently has. The larger, one size fits all, federal government model is wrong. Just as costs of living vary across the country so should minimum wages. Some things are best left to the states to decide. Too bad the Dems will never have a real debate on this; just smear and dismiss is the best they will do.

More POLITICO Arena

About the Arena

The Arena is a cross-party, cross-discipline forum for intelligent and lively conversation about political and policy issues. Contributors have been selected by POLITICO staff and editors. David Mark, Arena's moderator, is a Senior Editor at POLITICO. Each morning, POLITICO sends a question based on that day's news to all contributors.